the stress of the strategy game is usually what drives me away from my Valley 2 campaigns.

It's funny, I'm the opposite. I like the strategy part but get driven away by the platforming half.

And there's another big problem with Valley 2 in terms of limiting its audience. I love both halves, but for anyone who just likes one of the two genres, it's a lot less attractive suddenly. You'll notice that even as we're mashing up genres in our titles that came after Valley 2, we're not mashing up quite so disparate ones. I guess Valley 2 is niche for some of the same reasons that Actraiser was.

They both have the same problem, really; but that "problem" is something that makes them particularly popular with the people who do really like them, so in an artistic sense it's not really a problem. But from a marketability and income sense, yeah, it's a problem.

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To be on topic, I could potentially see more micro-expansions as a thing rather than full blown double the game asset expansions. A set of classes, tile/missions, etc. Less new content but also less investment - much as I would love a new campaign entirely.

A couple times, I wanted V2 to have a "beat-em-up" play mechanic. Throwing punches, kicks, simple combos instead of spells. Or both!

I'm not sure if there's much appeal in an aftergame, but like with my suggestion for V1's endgame, it might be interesting to discover, across an ocean, a "new world" continent that has the appearance of having developed independently, that is now a rival to your continent. I do say this not having beaten V2 yet, though.

This would be a different kind of strategy game, since you'd now have the elbow room to build up things back home without getting smashed, you'd be getting attacked from the coastlines, with periodic drops in the middle of the land. You'd be protecting and developing assets you already have, so it's less of a scramble than before, while undermining and eventually toppling the works on the other side.

I guess you'd have some new offensive units and abilities, etc. for making and establishing beachheads on that other continent. And you'd dispatch folks on missions on this other continent and so forth, while carrying out your own special missions, with levels more bent on exploration as with V1, or perhaps shorter and simpler levels... not sure about this bit yet.

And then there'd be another final boss to contend with, sort of a wicked witch of the west component to old 'Monica.

(I'm mostly thinking about easy duplication of assets and possibly code here, though of course I'm not a programmer and know not of what I speak.)

I just want to voice my support for the hand-crafted-story-driven-platforming-prequel idea. I like strategy games a lot, but I always found myself liking the platforming a lot more in AVWW2.

I'm not holding my breath that anything will ever see the light of day, but it would be incredibly awesome if something like this came to be! Though, if I were completely honest, I'd rather have a Shattered Haven expansion. I've always had a soft spot for runts.

Just asking: would there be any interest in a "just the strategy game" mode? Or a "just the platformer game" mode? I think one of them could be spun as an expansion with a little sprucing so it wouldn't be "paying more money to get a subset of the original content". But there'd need to be some interest for them to make sense.

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A couple times, I wanted V2 to have a "beat-em-up" play mechanic. Throwing punches, kicks, simple combos instead of spells. Or both!

Going a bit off-topic, but here's a great idea for a game if anyone wants to make it (says he casually): permadeath randomized almost roguelike scrolling beat'em up. Myself and a friend were playing "house rules" permadeath Super Double Dragon on the SNES (online actually using the amazing Retroarch emulator) and it is tremendous.

I'm sure Arcen could knock a game like this up -- if you had a spare $100,000 lying around to invest in the art assets, and maybe 6 months of free programming time to code a new engine and ... etc!

Just a dream of mine. If such a game already exists somewhere out there in the tinternets then I'm all ears.

Just asking: would there be any interest in a "just the strategy game" mode? Or a "just the platformer game" mode? I think one of them could be spun as an expansion with a little sprucing so it wouldn't be "paying more money to get a subset of the original content". But there'd need to be some interest for them to make sense.

There is. I for one would love to see a pimped "just the platformer" mode .

What I would really love to see in a Valley 2 expansion would be anything that brings the platforming part a bit closer to its (implied) metroidvania roots instead of being slightly generic (as it is now). Some thoughts on things that might help with this (feasibility left totally aside as I can't really judge what kind of effort would be necessary):

More (distinguishable) slices than there are now (I know there are hundreds, but I feel the platforming sections get samey fairly fast anyway)

Actual gated chunks/slices/areas that need to be revisited later (see doors in Metroid)

More slices per chunk (I am going for the overall chunk length of the stratospheric citadel chunks or slightly smaller here - the new robotic research facilities are definitely too short after the last nerf)

Less homogenous chunks (not always moving from left to right, combine delving/climbing with horizontal movement more etc. - the abandoned towns and pyramid interiors are a good start here - just make them a bit bigger)

Miniboss fights using existing monster assets (maybe just recolored) but using slightly more sophisticated patterns in terms of AI than the existing henchmen fights (the gauntlets are fun but the henchmen are a little - meh). If necessary tie this to specific slices/chunks to be able to allow for something more gripping

Skelebots! (They are such a landmark for V1 imho, I think it is definitely loss that they got omitted for V2)

An actual inventory - this might be too much to ask I know

So, all in all, I am going for a more diverse platforming experience here, without necessarily having to add any assets at all (aside from slices).Make an expansion that makes V2 into a proper Metroid and I will never play another game again - this is a promise ...

Thanks for (even remotely) considering a V2 expansion at all - I was really heartstruck when I recognized that V2 did not take off as well as I hoped...

I would likely grab either a strategy side or platforming side expansion. Likely my preference is on the platforming side, that's where 80% of the gameplay is really. But I would eat up a strategy only expansion.